Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Phone Communication with Three Year Olds is Futile!

It's a big deal for The Zoo to coordinate calling Canada while in Mexico.

Assuming that the internet café is open, we need to make sure that the person we're calling is home. We also need to make sure that two three-year olds stay fairly quiet in a room jam packed with distractions.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Needless to say, no one has heard from us.

However, after much pressure from Nanna and the Abuelos, we bit the bullet.

To make things slightly more interesting, while travelling, we use “Voice over IP”. The technology that we use (USB key with earphones) requires that each kid install one ear piece in their ear. Of course, one piece is longer than the other and the microphone is the size of a knat! And all is lost if one of them turns their head (of course this would never happen in a crowded internet café).

Have you ever seen the episode of Mr. Bean where he's trying to get reception for his tv and pretty near needs to stand on his head to get it? Pretend you're watching an episode of that.

After 30 minutes of prep we were set and ready to go, here's how all our hard work panned out.

Me: Say hello to Nanna.
Both Kids:Silence.
Me: Nanna, you’re going to need to talk to them, there’s a lot of distraction here.
Nanna says somethingBoth Kids:Silence.
Max: Airplanes.
Artemis: Yes. LaughingMax: Blue. More LaughingArtemis:Shakes her head “No”. Nanna cannot see this, I translate.Artemis: Bye Nanna.
Note that I'm not actually sure if Nanna actually wanted to get off the phone with them but that was neither here nor there.